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Opera went on an acquisition spree over the last few years to buy and stitch together what is now the largest independent mobile ad network. Pretty much went fr

Opera went on an acquisition spree over the last few years to buy and stitch together what is now the largest independent mobile ad network. Pretty much went from nothing 2 years ago to the vast majority of their revenues this year. Which is to say the Opera most people think about, the browser, isn't where the money is being made. In fact, Opera MediaWorks, their mobile ad network, isn't really connected to the browser in any way, and the business is structured as a nearly separate entity.

gcb0 11y ago
that was the shift they did when they gave up browsers (i.e. become chromium skin makers). it was a crazy shift. they always made some money with ads. so they decided to cut the middle man, but they forgot a) they didn't have the eyeballs anymore, b) they know nothing about being a network. yeah they bought companies, but probably the clients didn't stick around otherwise people here would at least have heard they are a publisher now.
- progers7 11y ago
  Opera is far from a "chromium skin maker". In addition to features like autosizing modes for mobile, Opera developers are heavily involved in specs as well as the entire Chromium stack: https://blink.lc/blink/log/?qt=author&q=opera https://blink.lc/blink/log/?qt=author&q=opera https://blink.lc/chromium/log/?qt=author&q=opera https://blink.lc/chromium/log/?qt=author&q=opera They have an incredible team.
  - neverminder 11y ago
    It's a little ironic for such news to end up here, because I'm pretty sure Opera (mobile) is the only one of the major browsers still supporting text reflow, which is why I use it for reading HN which doesn't have an official mobile site version.
    - Bromlife 11y ago
      I too use Opera Mobile for its text reflow feature. A feature sorely lacking in (AFAIK) every single other mobile browser.
      - pcwalton 11y ago
        Firefox has text reflow on zoom.
        unicornporn 11y ago
        But it isn't even comparable. I've tried switching to Firefox, but the text reflow sucks badly.
        AaronMT 11y ago
        It is unmaintained and broken.
        gcb0 11y ago
        every browser HAD text reflow at least around 2010~2012. for whatever reason, they all removed it. Android stock had text reflow (and inverted color night reading). then on 2.3.3, gone. now they don't even have a stock browser. they ship with chrome, installed as a system app. firefox started with awesome text reflow. then i think on fenec v16 they screwed up everything when moving to the Reader feature just to clone safari, safari for f* sake...
    - digitalengineer 11y ago
      The best for mobile as far as ICan tell: http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/ http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/
      - unicornporn 11y ago
        But you can't comment or reply with it? I like this a lot more (still no solution for comments though): http://hn.premii.com/ http://hn.premii.com/
  - bigbugbag 11y ago
    They have an incredible team but their browser is a skin for chromium compared to what it was before they dropped their engine (shortly after the founder left due to a board "too quarterly oriented". A couple years later the new opera is till far beyond what it was and it seems they're not even trying to fix this while vivaldi on the other hand is driven by a vision and has made much more progress in a more timely manner. I've been using opera as my main browser since they removed ads in 2005, today I'm still using presto based opera with no plan to switch to the blink based version of opera because many of the features that made opera are missing and are not coming back which make the "chromium skin" designation a reality.
    - feld 11y ago
      so how badly does your presto opera fail the ssl client test?
      - bmn_ 11y ago
        It fails not at all. Result of https://www.howsmytls.com/ https://www.howsmytls.com/ Version: Good Ephemeral Key Support: Good Session Ticket Support: Improvable TLS Compression: Good BEAST Vulnerability: Good Insecure Cipher Suites: Good Result of https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html Protocol Support: Your user agent has good protocol support. Logjam Vulnerability (Experimental): Your user agent is not vulnerable. FREAK Vulnerability: Your user agent is not vulnerable. POODLE Vulnerability: Your user agent is not vulnerable. Cipher Suites (in order of preference): TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256 (0x6b) Forward Secrecy ←←←←← listed first, other ciphers elided Protocol Details: Session tickets No ←←←←← feature is labelled in yellow, all other details are labelled in black or green, elided If outdated TLS ever becomes a pressing concern, it's easy to put a proxy in front of the browser.
  - yareally 11y ago
    I've used Opera since 2004 and the current Chromium based Opera is barely even a shadow of what it once was. It took them well over a year just to implement bookmark functionality, because they didn't feel it needed it and then realized it did. Even the newer Vivaldi browser also based on Chromium (started by the former CEO of Opera) has more classic features (tab stacking, partial key rebinding, sidebar) than the official Opera and started far later after the Opera Chromium reboot. Is the team incredible? Perhaps, but not in the way a long time Opera user would desire. I'd be happy if it had even half of the features of Opera 12, but as it is now, it's around 10-15%. Thankfully, Opera 12 (Presto) with some tweaking works pretty well still after being discontinued around 2 years ago.
  - gcb0 11y ago
    this was the main point of my comment. before they were a browser maker. everyone knew them for that. the work from their team shone. now they are skin makers. and a unknown ad network. the work of both their awesome browser devs and ad servers are mostly unknown to anyone. it all goes to google fame in the end. or do you think people outside of this very small circle of browser developers read release notes and credits?! heck you had to link to a source tracker. nobody knows what is the opera browser anymore, because, i was one of them, you use opera because of feature X and Y. then you install Opera 13 over opera 12, and... you have a trimmed down version of chrome! you don't have your loved feature X. Nor feature Y. and some features from chrome haven't even made it to opera 13! so you just go to chrome and forever give up feature X and Y (not sure why so many people do that), or you move forward to firefox and have incomplete versions of X and Y. I doubt opera kept any user after 13.

gcb0 11y ago

that was the shift they did when they gave up browsers (i.e. become chromium skin makers). it was a crazy shift. they always made some money with ads. so they decided to cut the middle man, but they forgot a) they didn't have the eyeballs anymore, b) they know nothing about being a network. yeah they bought companies, but probably the clients didn't stick around otherwise people here would at least have heard they are a publisher now.

progers7 11y ago
Opera is far from a "chromium skin maker". In addition to features like autosizing modes for mobile, Opera developers are heavily involved in specs as well as the entire Chromium stack: https://blink.lc/blink/log/?qt=author&q=opera https://blink.lc/blink/log/?qt=author&q=opera https://blink.lc/chromium/log/?qt=author&q=opera https://blink.lc/chromium/log/?qt=author&q=opera They have an incredible team.
- neverminder 11y ago
  It's a little ironic for such news to end up here, because I'm pretty sure Opera (mobile) is the only one of the major browsers still supporting text reflow, which is why I use it for reading HN which doesn't have an official mobile site version.
  - Bromlife 11y ago
    I too use Opera Mobile for its text reflow feature. A feature sorely lacking in (AFAIK) every single other mobile browser.
    - pcwalton 11y ago
      Firefox has text reflow on zoom.
      - unicornporn 11y ago
        But it isn't even comparable. I've tried switching to Firefox, but the text reflow sucks badly.
      - AaronMT 11y ago
        It is unmaintained and broken.
      - gcb0 11y ago
        every browser HAD text reflow at least around 2010~2012. for whatever reason, they all removed it. Android stock had text reflow (and inverted color night reading). then on 2.3.3, gone. now they don't even have a stock browser. they ship with chrome, installed as a system app. firefox started with awesome text reflow. then i think on fenec v16 they screwed up everything when moving to the Reader feature just to clone safari, safari for f* sake...
  - digitalengineer 11y ago
    The best for mobile as far as ICan tell: http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/ http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/
    - unicornporn 11y ago
      But you can't comment or reply with it? I like this a lot more (still no solution for comments though): http://hn.premii.com/ http://hn.premii.com/
- bigbugbag 11y ago
  They have an incredible team but their browser is a skin for chromium compared to what it was before they dropped their engine (shortly after the founder left due to a board "too quarterly oriented". A couple years later the new opera is till far beyond what it was and it seems they're not even trying to fix this while vivaldi on the other hand is driven by a vision and has made much more progress in a more timely manner. I've been using opera as my main browser since they removed ads in 2005, today I'm still using presto based opera with no plan to switch to the blink based version of opera because many of the features that made opera are missing and are not coming back which make the "chromium skin" designation a reality.
  - feld 11y ago
    so how badly does your presto opera fail the ssl client test?
    - bmn_ 11y ago
      It fails not at all. Result of https://www.howsmytls.com/ https://www.howsmytls.com/ Version: Good Ephemeral Key Support: Good Session Ticket Support: Improvable TLS Compression: Good BEAST Vulnerability: Good Insecure Cipher Suites: Good Result of https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html Protocol Support: Your user agent has good protocol support. Logjam Vulnerability (Experimental): Your user agent is not vulnerable. FREAK Vulnerability: Your user agent is not vulnerable. POODLE Vulnerability: Your user agent is not vulnerable. Cipher Suites (in order of preference): TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256 (0x6b) Forward Secrecy ←←←←← listed first, other ciphers elided Protocol Details: Session tickets No ←←←←← feature is labelled in yellow, all other details are labelled in black or green, elided If outdated TLS ever becomes a pressing concern, it's easy to put a proxy in front of the browser.
- yareally 11y ago
  I've used Opera since 2004 and the current Chromium based Opera is barely even a shadow of what it once was. It took them well over a year just to implement bookmark functionality, because they didn't feel it needed it and then realized it did. Even the newer Vivaldi browser also based on Chromium (started by the former CEO of Opera) has more classic features (tab stacking, partial key rebinding, sidebar) than the official Opera and started far later after the Opera Chromium reboot. Is the team incredible? Perhaps, but not in the way a long time Opera user would desire. I'd be happy if it had even half of the features of Opera 12, but as it is now, it's around 10-15%. Thankfully, Opera 12 (Presto) with some tweaking works pretty well still after being discontinued around 2 years ago.
- gcb0 11y ago
  this was the main point of my comment. before they were a browser maker. everyone knew them for that. the work from their team shone. now they are skin makers. and a unknown ad network. the work of both their awesome browser devs and ad servers are mostly unknown to anyone. it all goes to google fame in the end. or do you think people outside of this very small circle of browser developers read release notes and credits?! heck you had to link to a source tracker. nobody knows what is the opera browser anymore, because, i was one of them, you use opera because of feature X and Y. then you install Opera 13 over opera 12, and... you have a trimmed down version of chrome! you don't have your loved feature X. Nor feature Y. and some features from chrome haven't even made it to opera 13! so you just go to chrome and forever give up feature X and Y (not sure why so many people do that), or you move forward to firefox and have incomplete versions of X and Y. I doubt opera kept any user after 13.